CFPB to Expand Consumer Complaint Feedback

August 1, 2016
By Tristram Q. Wolf
From the Consumer Financial Services group at Ballard SpahrIn a request for information published in today’s federal register, the CFPB is seeking information on a proposed addition to the current complaint intake form.

The new field would include a survey that consumers may choose to respond to, providing their feedback on the company’s response to their complaint.The consumer would be able to opt-in and provide this feedback publicly, much the way they can with their complaint narrative.

The CFPB anticipates that, in addition to providing additional public information for future consumers, the feedback field will enable consumers to “highlight positive company behavior.” The proposed feedback field would replace the existing “dispute” function that currently allows consumers to indicate their dissatisfaction with a company’s response.

The CFPB’s request for information appears to be an effort to be responsive to industry commentary by allowing for positive, in addition to negative, feedback, and thus ostensibly rewarding companies for being responsive through the Portal.

Consumers will have the option to score the company’s response from 1 to 5 and to provide a narrative description of the rationale for the number they selected.